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Sellentin, E, Heymans, C and Harnois-Déraps, J (2018) The skewed weak lensing likelihood: why biases arise, despite data and theory being sound. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 477 (4). pp. 4879-4895. ISSN 0035-8711
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Abstract
We derive the essentials of the skewed weak lensing likelihood via a simple hierarchical forward model. Our likelihood passes four objective and cosmology-independent tests which a standard Gaussian likelihood fails. We demonstrate that sound weak lensing data are naturally biased low, since they are drawn from a skewed distribution. This occurs already in the framework of Lambda cold dark matter. Mathematically, the biases arise because noisy two-point functions follow skewed distributions. This form of bias is already known from cosmic microwave background analyses, where the low multipoles have asymmetric error bars. Weak lensing is more strongly affected by this asymmetry as galaxies form a discrete set of shear tracer particles, in contrast to a smooth shear field. We demonstrate that the biases can be up to 30 per cent of the standard deviation per data point, dependent on the properties of the weak lensing survey and the employed filter function. Our likelihood provides a versatile framework with which to address this bias in future weak lensing analyses.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2018 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jul 2020 09:53 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2021 06:57 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1093/mnras/sty988 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/13341 |
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